The Price of Motherhood: Where We Are Now Myth of post women’s movement that women have given up motherhood in favor of career Time devoted to children is immense Comparably mothers spend more time than fathers –A hold-over norm of behavior? –An economically generated responsibility?

Motherhood with Job Flexibility Eleanor example Homemaking the largest profession Persistence of traditional family patterns cuts across economic, class, and racial lines U.S. low labor force participation rate for college educated women in the developed world (Turkey, Ireland Switzerland and Netherlands have smaller proportions)

Mothers: The Full Time Wife and The Part Time Mom? Business & Professional circles: college educated stay-at-home mother Part-time work: 20% of married mothers with children under 18. Principal job is at home – part time work includes 1 hour a week to 5 unpaid hours in the family business –Crittenden asserts that this method of counting artificially inflates the number of “working” mothers. Nearly half of women with children under 18 are full time workers

The Leisure Gap Data source: Time use surveys –Women entering the workplace take on a second full time job –Dedication of time and resources to children and job –Housework and cooking stop (per grocery manufacturers) –Some give up sleep –Turbo-capitalism?

Leisure Gap (continued) 27% of American children in single parent families. Most are female, single heads of households. Children living with single mothers spent fewer hours a week with parents than children living with married parents Washington Post surveyed teenagers (n=702) –26% w/married parents – too little time –30% w/married parents – too much time –50% w/divorced parents - too little time –18% w/divorced parents – too much time

MIA: Fathers Myth 1: mothers are working and therefore absent Myth 2: fathers are increasing their time with their children Economic irrationality: –Mothers earning more than fathers still do most of the housework –Men report this not women –Children change the distribution of workload in the home

REALITY CHECK 20.5 million American children under age 5 –320,000 have fathers as primary guardian = 1.5% Attitude Check: –1994 survey 73 – 80% of respondents placed child and house-care responsibility with women –Socialization trumps economics

Unproductive Housewifery The largest profession? The most important profession? Mothers are: –dependents –who don’t work –who have to be supported by someone who is actually working.

Precapitalism Good wife a major economic asset Fruits of wife labor belonged to men With most families in state of poverty inequities (male/female) irrelevant. Onset of cash economy –New definition of work or labor –New definition of support –Perception of unpaid work as not part of the economy

Hamilton vs. Wollenstonecraft 1791 Report on Manufactures – Hamilton –An argument for national investment in manufacturing –Only goods saleable for revenue could be included in “production” of a society Wollenstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman –Pointed out that under the emerging economic system –“…women can become like men, and so full citizens; or they continue at women’s work, which is of no value for citizenship.” Folbre –“Moral elevation of the home was accompanied by the economic devaluation of the work done there”

Disappearing Mother’s Work The conventional story asserts the absence of serious economic activity from households by mid-1800s Households transformed from places of work to places of leisure Crittenden asserts this is untrue – only the type of goods and services produced changed –The new product: the “intensively raised child”

Women’s Work in the household Men and children went to work and school Women left to assume the tasks that had been performed by men and children in the household –Chores with animals, gardens, repairs, added to traditional work of cooking, cleaning, child care –Situation leads to the parallel claim of women’s slavery

Stanton’s demands for family equality Family economic equality the most radical demand of the women’s movement Likely one of many causes of delay in suffrage 1848, 1857, 1860 Married Women’s Property Act in NY state passed and amended to give women rights to their property, children, earnings, and inheritance MWPAs did not effect the economic status of most American women –1890 only 3.3% of married white women worked for wages –A distribution of power issue

Eliminating family economic equality Too controversial Women’s work should be “volunteered” Women demanding compensation for family work have something wrong with them British Census: 1871 head of household defined as “the householder, master, husband, or father” –1881 all women engaged in unpaid domestic duties were placed in the “Unoccupied Class” –1891 British census dropped the category of wives and mothers completely –1898 German census identified married women as “dependents” –1890 Australia divided citizens into breadwinners and dependents

Wife as servant to one man Socialization is so complete women’s movement is divided Charlotte Gilman and Anna Shaw Gilman –wives are unproductive parasites –Eliminate private homes and move everyone into apartment houses with professional care Shaw –Distinguished between mother work and servant work –Mothers create homes for children; servants merely maintain homes

Two roads? Feminists had two obvious paths to choose from First, to move out of the private (family) arena and into the (public) world of work Second, to seek equality for women within the family and challenges the idea of wives as dependents Consequence: women’s movement picks option one and accepts the continued devaluation of motherhood – adding yet another divide (obstacle) to the women’s movement (stopping its relevance to millions of women)

The Truly Invisible Hand GNP as of 1920 count only goods and services bought and sold (developed by Kuznets) Limitations include the omission of intangibles –Improvements in surgical techniques –Clean water –Care provided by a family member PICU and sick children – what do preemies need most? Sick elderly – what do they need most? What they need for survival is not measurable by GNP

The quality of Early care Large and growing body of research points to the need for good early childhood care Human capital must be developed Human capital accounts for 3/4s of “producible forms of wealth” Is it “being there”